


Falling Short

by explosionshark



Series: Mouthful of Diamonds [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mentions of Suicide, Post-Episode 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/pseuds/explosionshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s kind of pathetic, maybe, how little it takes for Taylor’s entire demeanor to change. Except it’s not little, not at all, it’s the only thing that’s kept her sane throughout the disaster of her mom’s sickness.</p><p>There’s nothing little about the feeling of Victoria’s eyes on her face in the dark, or the warmth of her hand in Taylor’s grip, or the way all of this makes Taylor’s heart sputter and expand in her chest.</p><p>-</p><p>Victoria and Taylor try to cope in the aftermath of Kate Marsh's suicide attempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Short

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PantyPoison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PantyPoison/gifts).



> This fic is based on an incredible HC from [Amy](http://mostlymilkwood.tumblr.com/). She drew some [brilliant fanart](http://mostlymostly.tumblr.com/post/130280743343/i-was-thinking-about-taylors-nightly-anxiety-and) and now I'm calling it a collab because no one's going to stop me.
> 
> I'm also calling this a fill for the prompt "hold + any pairing" that [Katy](http://gaychloeprice.tumblr.com/) sent a few weeks ago.
> 
> Title from the Lapsley song, which is actually quite appropriate for this fic and should be listened to.
> 
> PLEASE CHECK THE TAGS BEFORE READING, SO THERE ARE NO NASTY SURPRISES.
> 
> Thanks to [Kaelin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TippyTypewriter) for the beta.

_I should stop,_ Taylor thinks, but just like the third and fourth and fifth time it’s occurred to her, she can’t quite bring herself to quit. Her mouth hurts, gums raw and sore, her cheeks and the corners of her mouth smarting where she’d jabbed herself with the toothbrush. But she can’t stop. She’s not clean yet, she’s not ready. She can already hear her dentist screaming about the damage of over-brushing, the hell she’s wreaking on her enamel, but who fucking cares? At least her family has great insurance.

She keeps brushing. Her entire world shrinks to the movement of her wrist, the sound of nylon bristles scraping her teeth, the taste of blood and mint, and isn’t that better than before?

Isn’t that better than a world made up of hospitals and sick moms and girls that tried to throw themselves off buildings?

She hears the bathroom door swing open and angles her body toward the wall, panic rising, but a glance at the doorway reveals Victoria looking tense and exhausted. Taylor feels the gallop of her heart stutter and even out, shoulders slumping in relief. She keeps brushing, dropping her gaze to the dull gleam of the faucet.

And then there’s a hand on her wrist, and another at the small of her back and she’s catching Victoria’s eyes in the mirror.

“Okay,” she says, and Taylor is entranced by the movement of her lips, the way they shape the words that drip from her mouth. She blinks hard, lets Victoria gently guide her hand down to her side. Victoria pries the toothbrush from her fingers, sets it on the edge of the sink and turns the faucet on. “Now rinse.”

She does, because how can she not? Victoria says jump, Taylor asks how high. She leans down and takes a gulp of water right from the faucet, swishing it around in her mouth with Victoria’s hands in her hair, holding it back from her face. She spits, watches the pink water disappear down the drain, and accepts the paper towel Victoria offers her. She dries her face, wipes the rest of the blood off of the sink.

“Come on,” says Victoria, curling a hand around Taylor’s elbow. She pulls Taylor out of the bathroom and down the hall, taking a right turn without giving Taylor the option of retreating to her own room.

She’s relieved.

“Today has been so supremely fucked,” Victoria grumbles, locking the door behind them. Taylor watches her silently from her perch on Victoria’s couch. The room is dark, dimly lit by the lamp by Victoria’s bed, steeping everything in shadows.

Safe in her room Victoria slumps against the door, shoulders hunched, covering her face with her palms and rubbing vigorously for a moment. She looks so beaten down it makes Taylor’s throat hurt and she has to look away. Her fingertips itch; she wants to cross the distance between them and take Victoria into her arms. She wants to un-fuck their lives.

But she can’t, so she stays still on the couch, trying to keep her breaths as slow and quiet as possible. She sits on her hands, the only thing stopping her from biting her nails to a bloody mess, remembering the last time. She’d been so disappointed with herself for backsliding, so disgusted with how she looked, and so grateful when Victoria dragged her to a day spa in Portland afterwards to fix the mess. Regular manicures had been a thing for them since then. Victoria would be pissed if she fucked it up now.

“I need a fucking drink,” Victoria announces, snapping back into perfect posture suddenly. She pushes off from the door and crosses the room, falling into a crouch in front of her dresser and withdrawing a half empty bottle of Stoli. “Turn the TV on.”

Taylor obeys, wincing when Victoria twists the cap off and takes a pull right off the bottle. If there’s anything Taylor hates more than drinking vodka, it’s drinking vodka _straight_.

“Here,” Victoria sets the bottle in front of her and walks to the closet. She tosses a spare change of pajamas in Taylor’s direction and promptly begins disrobing.

It’s fucked up, Taylor knows, watching her like this, but she can’t help it. Victoria’s body flickers blue, backlit by the light of the TV, all shadows and bare skin. And then she’s looking up, arms poised behind her back with her bra unhooked, and catching Taylor’s gaze.

“Jesus, Taylor, put your fucking PJs on,” Victoria snaps.

Taylor nods, stomach lurching sickly. She reaches out, hands shaking, and grabs the vodka from the table, swallowing a disgusting mouthful right then and there. It _hurts_. Her mouth is still raw, the alcohol sets her gums and tongue ablaze, the sting sharp enough to bring tears to her eyes. She changes quickly, eyes fixed on a patch of the carpet, focusing on the burn in her mouth and trying not to think of the look on Victoria’s face when she caught Taylor staring, or what it might mean.

“Here, put this in,” Victoria says, throwing a DVD onto Taylor’s lap. “I’d say we’ve earned some mindless, hot guy therapy, right?”

“Right,” Taylor echoes, smiling so Victoria can hear it, flipping the case over in her hands. _Magic Mike_ wasn’t a typical choice for Victoria, she usually wanted something artier and more pretentious, or else at least with a higher plot to shirtless Channing Tatum ratio. She wonders if the choice is as pointed as it feels, or if that’s just her anxiety talking.

Taylor sinks into the couch, holding one of Victoria’s pillows over her stomach like a shield, staring at the glowing figure of Victoria’s new doll on the desk across the room. Some character from those Japanese cartoons she loved. Taylor’s at least grateful she didn’t pick one of those movies tonight, sure that she wouldn’t be able to focus enough to follow subtitles or a complicated story.

The annoying fucking music from the movie menu must have looped fifteen times before Victoria finally comes back. She drops beside Taylor on the couch, utterly graceless and unguarded, face bare, body slack with exhaustion.

Victoria keeps drinking, passing the bottle to Taylor after every pull. Taylor sips her vodka dutifully. It’s not any less disgusting than before and it burns just as badly, but she lets herself lean into the pain, holding every mouthful a little longer on her tongue each time. Fingers toying with the chain of her necklace like a rosary, it feels right. It feels something like penance.

She spends more time watching Victoria than she does watching the movie. It’s not like Victoria notices, tense and restless beside her in the dark. She’s staring hard in the direction of the TV, jaw set tight, brow crinkled, nostrils flaring in tempo with whatever mental war she was waging with herself. Victoria has a reputation for cruelty, and Taylor won't deny that it’s deserved. But the thing that no one else understands, the truth that Taylor knows all too well, is that the brutality Victoria unleashes on everyone else is _nothing_ compared to the violence she saves for herself.

“It’s fucked,” Victoria says, around the mouth of the bottle, about an hour into the film. It startles Taylor, even though she’s been waiting for a moment like this. She looks over, watches the light of the TV flicker across Victoria’s face and waits for her to continue.

There are words on the tip of Taylor’s tongue, but she pins them to the roof of her mouth, waiting. Victoria isn’t one to be rushed.

“I didn’t think she’d fucking try to…” Victoria starts again, and Taylor can see the bottle shaking in her grip. Slowly, carefully, Taylor slides forward on the couch, only stopping when her knee bumps into Victoria’s thigh. She thinks of that moment in the bathroom, the gentle pressure of Victoria’s fingers around her wrist, and reaches out to pull the bottle from Victoria’s grasp.

Without the bottle, Victoria kind of crumples back into the couch, twisting her body toward Taylor and reaching out, grabbing onto her hand and squeezing.

“I mean it’s not like I wanted…” she fumbles, aggrieved. And it’s so rare to see Victoria this uncomposed, this raw and in pain, it feels almost wrong to witness it. It feels almost too private.

“I know,” Taylor says, squeezing Victoria’s hand back. It doesn’t feel like enough, but Victoria sniffs and draws a circle inside of Taylor’s palm with her thumb. She shivers, feeling the heat of Victoria’s bare thigh pressed against her, the weight of her gaze through the dark between them.

“It’s like no matter how hard I try I can’t make things go the way I want,” Victoria admits, inhaling sharply as soon as the words leave her mouth, as if she’d surprised herself. “Everyone thinks that I just get whatever I want, but that’s not true. I work fucking _hard_ and I still can’t--”

She cuts herself off, and the silence that spills between them is deep, dark, like the look in Victoria’s eyes.

“I’m fucking _sick_ of nothing going right,” she says finally, brittle and beautiful and furious at once. “I know… I know the party seems _stupid_ , especially after everything but I just… need something to work out. You know?”

Taylor nods, chest painfully tight. “I know.”

Victoria blinks and shifts, sliding forward until they’re even closer. “Yeah,” she swallows. “I guess you would.”

Taylor smiles, but it’s a wobbly thing, almost sliding off her face.

“Heard anything from them today?” Victoria asks.

“Yeah,” Taylor nods, letting her eyes dip down to their joined hands in her lap. She shifts her grip, runs the pad of her thumb over one of Victoria’s knuckles. “Therapy was rough this week. She says we can come up to visit on Saturday. I know you might--”

“I wanted to do some shopping in Salem anyway,” Victoria says, almost like she barely means it, almost like it was so inconsequential it was hardly worth the effort of speaking. “I’ll give you a ride.”

Taylor lets out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, and it’s incredible how effortlessly Victoria can take the tangled mess of nerves in the pit of her stomach and unwind them. It’s kind of pathetic, maybe, how little it takes for Taylor’s entire demeanor to change. Except it’s not little, not at all, it’s the only thing that’s kept her sane throughout the disaster of her mom’s sickness.

There’s nothing little about the feeling of Victoria’s eyes on her face in the dark, or the warmth of her hand in Taylor’s grip, or the way all of this makes Taylor’s heart sputter and expand in her chest.

“Thanks,” Taylor breathes, and it’s stupid, it’s not enough. What she’s feeling, her gratitude, her comfort, her love for Victoria is too wild and desperate and huge for a single syllable. She pauses, heart in her throat, aching to communicate the enormity of it all.

Victoria freezes, just for a split second, and Taylor can see the moment she decides to let herself react. The smile Victoria gives her is small and real and it takes Taylor’s breath away. “It’s fine.”

“No,” Taylor blurts, voice shaky. She winces, fighting to stop the quickening of her breath, the trembling of her hands. Victoria’s brow furrows at Taylor’s outburst, the hand not trapped in Taylor’s grasp raises to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and it’s too much. Taylor gasps before she can stop herself, leaning into Victoria’s touch. “It’s not just fine, it’s--”

She trails off, feeling her panic and frustration start to rise. Victoria notices, eyes widening just a fraction and then she closes the distance between them, pulling Taylor into her body and running a soothing hand down her back. Gratefully, Taylor sinks into the hug, pressing her forehead into the crook of Victoria’s neck.

Victoria hugs stiffly, completely devoid of her trademark poise. The pressure of her arms around Taylor’s shoulders keeps changing, lighter, then harder, like she’s not sure what to do. Casual affection, this kind of physical intimacy, has never been the kind of skill her family was keen on honing and Taylor knows these moments don’t come easily to her.

“Thank you,” Taylor whispers again, and it’s still not what she wants to say, but Victoria hums in her ear, running a hand through her hair and she knows it’s enough. For Victoria, it’s enough.

But it’s not for Taylor. Not nearly enough, and it’s fucked up because Victoria gives her so much, maybe more than she gives anyone else. But Taylor still wants more, she wants the rest.

“You’re welcome,” Victoria whispers, breath tickling the shell of Taylor’s ear. Then, impulsively, she presses a kiss to Taylor’s temple, quick and nervous, so light she might have dreamed it. The reflexive nervous clenching of Victoria’s hands in the fabric of her shirt, and the burn against Taylor’s skin are the only proof she has that it even happened.

Taylor shudders, pressing harder into Victoria’s body, lost in the scent of her body lotion, the haze of her own yawning desire. The pale expanse of Victoria’s neck is so warm and inviting and Taylor almost doesn’t realize she’s pressed a kiss of her own into Victoria’s skin until she feels her tense beneath her.

Taylor freezes, rigid in Victoria’s arms, until she feels Victoria relax again. She doesn’t say anything, just resumes the slow combing of her fingers through Taylor’s hair.

Taylor lets out a shaky breath into Victoria’s neck, twisting the angle of her head to kiss her again, higher this time, along the sculpted slope of Victoria’s jaw, feeling the slow breath Victoria lets out in response deep in her gut.

Bolder now, Taylor drags her lips up to the space just beneath Victoria’s ear, leaving another soft kiss. Victoria’s hand tightens in her hair, tugging just a bit and the slight sting leaves her heady, impulsive. She pulls back, taking in the light flush of Victoria’s cheeks, the heavy half-lidded cast of her eyes and leans in.

Victoria turns her head at the last moment, bringing Taylor’s lips in contact with the side of her face and Taylor freezes, heart thumping wildly in her chest. Victoria pulls back and Taylor hovers awkwardly close to her face for a moment too long before withdrawing herself from Victoria’s arms. Her heart’s pounding, face bright red, throat painfully tight. She feels dizzy, almost panicked, eyes locked on her lap, wishing desperately for a way to undo the last ten minutes of her life.

God, she’s fucked _everything up._

“Sorr--”

“Shh, shut up,” Victoria says, words tumbling out of her mouth in kind of a rush. She shifts on the couch until she’s sitting normally again, facing the television. “This is my favorite part.”

Taylor grinds her teeth, nodding and forcing her gaze back to the gyrating men on the screen. Definitely a pointed choice. _Stupid_.

Taylor sits sullen on the couch, almost numb with regret, waiting for the movie to finally end so she can retreat back to her room. She almost wishes Victoria had kicked her out, rather than subject her to this purgatory, replaying the moment over and over in her head with agonizing mental acuity.

The sudden weight of Victoria’s hand atop her own startles Taylor enough to make her jump. She whips her head to the left, heart thumping, to find Victoria still staring determinedly away; totally relaxed, but for the drumming of her free hand against the armrest of the couch. Taylor swallows hard, careful not to move despite the instinct to pull her hand away.

Taylor’s feeling less panicked by the time the movie finally ends, but she still can’t wait to get out of the room. She rises from the couch but Victoria tightens her grip on Taylor’s hand, anchoring her in place.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“It’s late,” Taylor says, shrugging weakly.

Victoria hesitates, and for a moment Taylor thinks she might try to argue with her, but then she nods, releasing Taylor’s hand with one final squeeze. “Sweet dreams.”

“You too,” Taylor says, relieved and disappointed at once.

She doesn’t turn on any of the lights in her room, illuminating the way to her bed with the screen of her phone. She collapses on top of the covers, burying her face in her pillow with a low groan. Exhaustion sits in Taylor’s bones, dragging her body toward the floor, but she can’t quiet the frantic buzzing in her head enough to sleep.

She lies in the dark, breathing in the lingering scent of Eau de Soir on her borrowed clothes, and waits.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my [tumblr](http://explosionshark.tumblr.com/) where I sometimes get emotional about LIS.


End file.
